"This is a phony budget. The Republican leadership's main goal isn't to balance the budget, but to appease the radical right who want to bankrupt the government so it's small enough to "drown it in a bathtub'. The Ryan budget turns Medicare into a voucher program and ends federal investment in our roads, bridges and highways, which would kill 2 million jobs. It raises taxes on middle income families, but protects loopholes and subsidies for corporations making record profits and cuts taxes for millionaires and billionaires. It uses fuzzy math to pretend it balances the budget in ten years. This is far from balanced, and it would hammer the economy instead of getting it back on track," said DeFazio.

DeFazio is a long time supporter of a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. He believes it would force Congress to reduce the deficit in a balanced way that includes investments that create middle class jobs, smart cuts that eliminate wasteful programs, and revenue raisers that close expensive tax loopholes and breaks for millionaires, billionaires, and profitable corporations.

BACKGROUND

According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities the Ryan Budget lowers tax rates for millionaires by an average of $240,000 while increasing taxes for middle class families by $3,000 a year.

It dismantles Medicare and turns it into a voucher program for nearly 540,000 Oregon seniors, increasing costs by as much as $5,900 per senior according to the Center for American Progress. Nearly 42,000 Oregon seniors would pay $1,000 more for prescription drugs according to Health and Human Services Department.

The Ryan budget slashes $5.14 billion from health care for poor Oregon seniors and nursing home care for 130,000 senior and disabled Oregonians who rely on Medicaid for long-term care.

Perhaps most shockingly, the Economic Policy Institute estimates that policies in the Ryan-Republican plan will lead to the loss of 2 million jobs in 2014 alone and at the same time, it decimate the budgets for unemployment assistance and food stamps.

The Ryan-Republican budget protects tax loopholes for oil companies already making record profits while ending investment for our crumbling transportation infrastructure, which would kill millions of good paying, private sector jobs. It would gut federal funding for air traffic control towers, community police, and student financial aid. These programs were already decimated by the March 1st sequestration cuts.